Automata and "Carolices" at Fabrica Centro Ciencia Viva

Last weekend was the last stop on the European book tour for “The Tinkering Workshop” and it was a great way to wrap up the series of workshops with cranky contraptions in Portugal at Fabrica Centro Ciência Viva de Aveiro. For me it was a really special place as I has previously visited the science center about seven or eight years ago when they were just thinking about getting started with a permanent space for making and tinkering on the museum floor. Now it’s a robust makerspace full of examples and inspirations alongside physical elements that invite kids and family to play, invent and explore.

There were two sessions of exploring cardboard crank slider automata for about 15-20 participants in the morning and the afternoon. It was so great to see how many ideas there were for stories (such as the red carnation flowers symbolizing the national holiday of April 25th) as well as mechanisms (with several versions of pedaling machines) that moved beyond the examples in the pages of “The Tinkering Workshop”.

I was amazed by the creativity of the projects and the way that ideas traveled around the workshop space. We placed the craft materials at a couple of tables around the room so that participants had to move around the room, see other people’s projects and hopefully get inspired to borrow good ideas.

It was also so great to connect to local educators, the museum staff and even a visiting group from Brazil that implements makerspaces around the country. One of the most interesting and fun things about the book tour is all of these spontaneous and unexpected connections that arise during the projects.

Right next to the tinkering zone was another gallery that I also wanted to highlight featuring “As Carolices do Avo Carlos” or “Grandpa Carlos’s little nonsense things“. These scrappy but surprisingly sturdy wooden toys and demonstrations tools for physics topics were made by a local teacher for his students. I much prefer this gallery to shiny and polished shows made by professional exhibit designers. Avo Carlos’s toys give the visitors agency and naturally let them become the experts about the topics.

This project connects to the local community and gives people the motivation to try to make their own versions! Beautiful close up photography show the compelling and interesting small craftsmanship details of the contraptions! my family and I spend about an hour and a half in this small room and could stayed even longer if we didn’t have a train to catch!

Thanks to the team at Aveiro for hosting this inspiring day and stay tuned on the events page for more workshops and public programs that will continue despite the ‘official’ end to the book tour adventure (for now).